PDP Information

Presentation Highlights

By Dilim Oraegbu, MBA, PMP

On April 17, 2018, members of the New Jersey
chapter were treated to an illuminating and electrifying
presentation by Christina CK Kerley. Titled “The Tech
Megatrends: 2018” it was a discussion of 4 technology trends
that we, as Project Managers not only need to be aware of
but also need to adapt to in order to be competitive. She
also gave specific steps on how to accomplish this.

At this meeting, we glimpsed the future.

The first Megatrend is The Rise of The “Outernet”.
This means that the physical world will be digitized. Every
physical thing will be connected. We will go from
smartphones to smart-everything, smart parking, smart
cities, smart agriculture etc. Everything will be an
experience. Any object that is not responsive, connected or
smart will be considered obsolete. The key imperative here
is to ensure your products are re-imagined and
re-instrumented into connected solutions. This will give
your company a competitive advantage.

The second Megatrend is The CoBots set us free. Now
CoBots is short hand for Collaborative Robots. A lot
of people have a fear that robots will take over their jobs.
In actuality, robots enable people to be more productive.
Automation has improved our standard of living and increased
the number of jobs. Robots are also better than humans at
crunching numbers, lifting heavy objects etc. Furthermore,
they can never fully replace humans because they lack human
skills such as creativity, empathy, strategy development
etc. Rather than fear or compete with them, we should
consider collaborating with them in order to free
up our time to focus on more important things. Today, we
spend 54% of our time on administrative
coordination and only 10% on innovation.
Imagine if a portion of that 54% was automated and how much
more innovative we could be. In the future, there will
be more Man and Machine collaborations. The key
imperative here is to identify 25% of your current tasks
that can be automated so as to free up your time to focus on
adding business value.

The third Megatrend is The Intelligent
Enterprise. We are moving into the Intelligence
Era where companies that thrive will be ones that are
Real-Time, Know-It-All and Data-Driven.
21st century businesses will live and die by the decisions
they make and how quickly they act and those that adopt IoT
(Internet of Things), Big Data and AI(Artificial
Intelligence) will make better decisions. The benefits
include predicting risk in financial markets, anticipating
customer behavior, thwarting terrorism and much, much more.
The key imperative here is to create a roadmap of the
technologies, data and resources needed to transform your
company into a real-time, know it all enterprise and work to
make it a reality.

The fourth Megatrend is The Web’s Second Act.
Christina predicts that the Web will change more over the next
5 years, than the past 25 years. Blockchain will
be the next generation internet. They are more secure,
smarter and enable value to be exchanged as quickly as we
access information. The action item here is to identify
various applications for Blockchain technology in your
company and initiate pilots.

Of particular note was that when it comes to AI,
America is on the verge of becoming the next Blockbuster.
Part of this is due to not having as many people in
technology. Countries such as Russia and China are becoming
big AI players in their own right and are on track to
overtake the U.S. To remain competitive, we need to
encourage more Americans, women, minorities to enter into
the technological space. Christina shared a number of
resources such as coursera that can be easily utilized to
learn about Artificial Intelligence and other courses for
free.

At the conclusion of this very educative presentation, we
were all left feeling emboldened, energized and inspired.
Many, I’m sure, began considering adding coding to
their skillset or recommending it to their family members.
Overall, it was an excellent presentation.

Abstract

As a PM, it’s not sufficient to be aware of
new technology trends, you need to learn how to lead the
change so that your organization can embrace the future and
not get left behind!

In this session, keynoter and futurist Christina “CK” Kerley
will showcase the tech trends that are disrupting and
dominating the 21st Century business landscape.

Yesterday was about billions of smartphones—but tomorrow
belongs to trillions of smart things digitizing our physical
world. The AI Arms Race is officially on, and companies must
turn into “real-time, know-it-all enterprises” to keep a
competitive edge. Digital transformation is our destination
. . . and blockchains may be key in getting us there.

As headlines of job-killing robots abound, the real story
escapes our view: Automation’s not taking our jobs away,
it's giving us back our time. Freed from administrative
tasks, “CoBots” will let executives focus on creating new
forms of value. And as this era of record-setting
advancements unfolds, the most critical success factor won’t
be technological: it will be uniquely human. A Reskilling
Revolution—unrivaled in size, scope, and scale—is just
around the corner.

Speaker

Bio:Innovation keynoter and futurist Christina “CK” Kerley
focuses Fortune 500s on the 10+ tech of the next 10 years.

A powerhouse of next-level content,
“edu-taining” delivery, and razor-sharp insights, CK has
wowed audiences at Verizon, Johnson & Johnson,
Microsoft, Amazon, The United Nations, E*TRADE, and Best
Buy.

A faculty member at Rutgers Business School
for Exec Ed, her in-demand topics span Tech Megatrends, AI,
Robotics, IoT, Health Tech, and Mobile. Her eBooks include
Future-Proof and The Smart Revolution.

Passionate about closing the opportunity
divide, her pro bono program—impaCKt—gives a leading edge to
underserved groups.

Other Meetings:

Career Networking LCI

Topic: HOW TO INTERVIEW LIKE A
ROCKSTAR with ABSOLUTELY ABBY

One day soon, a recruiter will call to
interview you for your dream job. Are you really ready to
receive that call? Do you know how to answer the tricky HR
questions? Are you really sure that you have what it takes
to land that job? Join the fun as everyone in the audience
learns how to interview like a rockstar!

You will learn:

How to really wow a recruiter in the first 10 seconds
of a phone screen

Why your choice of clothing can make or break your
chances of success

How to answer questions like "What kind of tree are
you?" and why we ask

How to brag but not boast and why you MUST learn these
skills

The topics to avoid at all costs during interview
small talk

How to close the deal at the end

Abby Kohut, widely known as Absolutely Abby, President of
Staffing Symphony, LLC and author of "Absolutely Abby's 101
Job Search Secrets", has been on a mission since 2012 to
help one million job seekers and is currently on a
nationwide tour to accomplish that goal.
www.AbbyAcrossAmerica.com Remember to bring your business
cards and updated resumes!